The star dancer accused of masterminding the attack on the Bolshoi ballet chief has told a court he gave the go-ahead for the attack, but insisted he did not order the perpetrator to use acid.

9:07AM GMT 07 Mar 2013

Pavel Dmitrichenko, best known for his roles as Ivan the Terrible and the Evil Genius in Swan Lake, told a Moscow court he had complained about Sergei Filin to an acquaintance, who offered to "beat him up".

But Dmitrichenko insisted: "It's not true that I ordered him to throw acid at Filin."

Filin's face and eyes suffered severe burns in the attack.

A Moscow district court was to decide whether to remand Dmitrichenko as well as the suspected perpetrator of the attack and the getaway driver.

Looking drawn and wearing a black coat, Dmitrichenko sat in the corner of the courtroom cage as his hearing got under way, nervously exchanging glances with his defence lawyer.

The court remanded him in custody until April 18, rejecting a petition for him to be released on bail.

Police said in a statement that Dmitrichenko had paid the perpetrator Yuri Zarutsky 50,000 roubles to attack Filin, who had acid flung in his face while returning home on the night of January 17.

Dmitrichenko, who was arrested on Tuesday, was shown in a police video confessing to planning the attack but "not on the scale" that it turned out.

The attack left 42-year-old Filin battling to save his eyesight and prevent permanent facial disfigurement. He is now undergoing a long rehabilitation in Germany.

Police have said the crime was motivated by Dmitrichenko's hostile personal relationship with Filin, which Russian press reports have suggested was caused by the Bolshoi chief's refusal to give his ballerina girlfriend Anzhelina Vorontsova top roles.

"The main motive was enmity towards Filin, who according to the suspect, had a negative attitude towards his partner," a police source told the Izvestia newspaper.

"Dmitrichenko said that Filin was thwarting Vorontsova's artistic career and did not give her the main roles," said the source.

In a tale of bitterness reminiscent of the hit ballet film "Black Swan", Dmitrichenko is reported to have been particularly riled that Vorontsova was not allowed to dance the main Odette-Odile role in "Swan Lake", the dream of any ballerina.

Filin's wife Maria told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily that her husband had suspicions about Dmitrichenko but believed that a "much wider" circle of people were involved.

"Not just the three who they arrested. We hope the security forces unearth those who are implicated in this," she said.

Some staff at the Bolshoi Theatre have suggested that Dmitrichenko's actions are impossible to comprehend given his own career was on the up after he took the title role in the ballet "Ivan the Terrible".

The third man arrested, driver Andrei Lipatov, insists he just drove to where he was told and had no idea of what Zarutsky was planning.